Dr Maurizio Ghelardi, Visiting Professorial Fellow (October 2003 to January 2004)
Dr Ghelardi's field of specialisation is European culture and historiography from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century. He has pursued research on socialist philosophy between the Wars, the history of the reception of Vico in Italy and Europe and the history of the history of philosophy and culture, especially in the German and French contexts. His interest in the cultural-historical and philosophical themes in Jacob Burckhardt's work has led him to study in detail the field of 19th-20th European historiography in addition to Burckhardt's own philosophical ideas of history.
Based on texts and source material, his research aimed to reconstruct key historical and cultural moments in the development of European civilisation between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th.
Dr Ghelardi's research as a Fellow of the School retraced Burckhardt's intellectual career, looking at his entire work as a phenomenology exemplifying European consciousness, from Greek civilisation down to the early 1870s and the culmination of the great cultural-historical crisis initiated by the French Revolution.
Dr Ghelardi gave a lecture on February 19th 2004: '`The Luxury of Thought' Notes on the biography of Jacob Burckhardt's Work'.
Dr Ghelardi is currently working at the Scuola Normale Superiore.
